No, I don't think "Ugh" is the magic word, if one would call it a word and even then certainly not a magic one.

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Someone please explain to me why it's even a little bit fair that my kids are always up before 5:00 ... I wasn't sleepy until around 11:00, then it took me forever to just doze off, when Miss O woke up around midnight. And probably hourly after that. 5 hours of ridiculously interrupted sleep is just not acceptable.

If someone could also remind me that I hate the concept of letting my kid cry themselves to sleep. Remind me a lot. Because at almost 16 months, there is no earthly reason this kid should be waking 5-6 times a night. Last night it was more like 8-9 times, as she woke up 3 times before I went to bed.

If she didn't sleep better (and later - until like 7:00) at Dave's, I wouldn't be quite so annoyed. But karmically speaking, my sleep shouldn't be the one targeted if she was going to be a sucky sleeper at one house and not the other.

And of course, Bean woke up loaded for bear, throwing a whiny-crying-hollering hissy fit when I told her no to chocolate before real food, then ramping it up a few notches when the banana she was eating 'broke' and wasn't all in one piece. Seriously. As if that changes the taste or anything. She screamed "no!" at me a few times when I told her to pick it up off the ground after she threw it there, so I ended up carrying her, kicking and screaming, to her room, tossed her on the bed and made her stay in there until she could mellow the hell out.

Magic word? Harumph. I'll take civil words. Hand to god, if all these books I'm reading don't give me some better coping tools, Bean's going to be a gift with purchase on eBay before she turns four.

I'm tellin' ya, I almost look forward to having to resolve conflict and deal with difficult people at work again. I cannot imagine a single situation I won't be able to handle, as it's unlikely that I'll have to toss a screaming, crying coworker over my shoulder and put them in a time out. Or deal with "no!" screamed at me repeatedly. Or have them spit at me when they don't like what I've said. I'm going to be the Zen Mistress at work, the one who can handle any sort of Joan Collins 'tude without getting ruffled.

It's hard to hold a grudge, tho, when the littlest one toddles in here, turns my chair to face her and beams up at me. And it's especially hard to hold a grudge when the big one is at school for the day ... yay for preschool!!

I took my taxes over to HR Block yesterday for their "Second Look", and I'm just flat-out getting hosed. Ugh. I'm most pissed about not being able to claim student loan interest because the statement has just Dave's social on it. I'm paying it, it was charged to me in the divorce decree, but it's his to deduct. And since he makes more than they allow for the deduction, no one gets a break. My advice to anyone contemplating divorce is to talk to an accountant first. We skipped that part, and we both got hit hard on stuff. So, accountant. Definitely. Especially if you have a bunch of assets to split and a damn student loan that can't be assigned to anyone else.

I watched my expected return get chopped in half because of that flippin' student loan interest ... I'll get over it, but I'm still cranky about it. Grrr ...

On to something less aggravating - validation from the American Association of Pediatrics for me having kept Bean rear-facing until she was 2: http://aapnews.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/30/4/12-a ... Miss O is still rear-facing and I had been loosely considering turning her to the front, but now she'll stay RF until at least two as well. And since she's such a teeny thing, I may leave her that way longer. She's usually got Bean in there with her to give her someone to look at and to keep her entertained, as well as a mirror that she can see me in, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep her RF.

There's also a Stonyfield Farm recall, affecting a few runs of the 32-ounce fat-free yogurt, for a "minute amount of food grade sanitizer" - http://www.stonyfield.com/
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Whatever is causing the Joan Collins 'tude, deal with it. Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever, but get over it.

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What a day.

I mentioned before that I thought my difficulties with Bean might be related to PMS ... well, this week - yesterday, especially - is adding weight to my theory. I just had no patience or tolerance with her. Last week she threw stuff at me, kicked me and pulled my hair and I was like a Zen Master. Yesterday she was just being a pain-in-the-butt kid and I could have throttled her like a kazillion times. My fuse was about this long: ' and it was all used up by about 6:15 a.m. Even knowing I was being an unreasonable beotch with her didn't help stem the tide. I think I need to have my hormone levels checked.

I should be writing cover letters, but I can't get my brain into it. They seem like such a superfluous, archaic formality anymore. These days you send your resume with the click of a mouse, and it goes into the void of the Interwebz and you rarely even receive a note letting you know your resume was received. I'm going to a resume workshop today, so I'll be sure to ask how necessary the things are anymore, although I know I'll still include one even if the response is "not very". I tend to kick it pretty old school on this stuff (case in point, I even bought heavyweight resume paper for the grand total of zero printed and mailed resumes I've submitted).

Speaking of that paper, I should probably print a couple "nice" copies to take with me in case there's a networking opportunity today. I'm thinking of having business cards made, too, just with my name and contact info and the generic 'writer' as a job title. I just hate the whole networking-with-a-piece-of-paper thing ... looks so cheesy. So even though I don't have a 'real job', a card would just be so much more professional.

Miss O has a Gymboree trial class today ... I doubt I'll be impressed enough in one class to justify the expense, but I feel bad that she doesn't have all the opportunities that Bean did. A big piece of it is the whole "I'm single and broke" thing, but part of it is that second-class citizenry that second (and subsequent) children just seem destined to inhabit. They have a small stretch of bonus point time when they are 'the baby', but once they reach toddlerhood, they're wearing hand-me-downs and their toys are just whatever the older kid has that seems least likely to be eaten and choked on. So you do all the fluffy extracurricular stuff with kid #1, but for some reason you do less, if any, with kid #2. Like their sad little half-completed baby books, their social lives are kind of an afterthought ...

Said afterthought is hovering around my chair, mooching bits of chocolate chocolate chip muffin while I multi-task. I'll give a big shout-out for Costco muffins because they totally rock. Miss O concurs, but you'll have to take my word for it as it sounds more like "ticka-ticka-ticka-hooo-hooo-mmmmm" than it does "I concur; these muffins are divine."

Thankfully, it's a school day, and I'm even getting a Miss O break when I attend the resume workshop, so it's possible that my cantankerous and ornery self won't be so cranky with Bean. Although the craptastic nights' sleep I had makes it extra good it's a school day. Miss O was up for awhile at 3 a.m. ... she'd nurse down, seem like she was going to conk out, and then pop back up. At some point, I found myself lying next to Miss I with Miss O sprawled perpendicular to us and still latched on. I had and have no recall of getting us there.

In the middle of the night, when I'm all discomboobulated and cranky, the notion of just putting her in a crib and letting her cry it out has so much appeal. In the harsh light of day, though, I know I'd never really do it. It just isn't my style. I figure she has to outgrow the frequent waking and nighttime nursing at some point, because Bast knows I'm not shacking up with her when she goes off to college!
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